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Monday, October 31, 2011

What's App-ening? - Review & Giveaway

Since joining the Apple bandwagon I've gone App crazy, which is obvious because I've titled this "What's App-ening?" and rather than groaning at my ridiculous pun I'm sitting back smugly thinking I'm pretty clever.

I'm App obsessed. Appsessed. I also thought I was pretty clever coming up with that word but a quick Google search shows me I'm most definitely not the first to think of it. But points for trying, right?

I've been playing with some new apps lately, well to be more specific, Tricky and I have been playing them together.

Peekaboo Barn is the cutest little app around and encourages animal recognition. Tricky loves copying the animal sounds and then opening the barn doors to see what animal is behind. What I like is that you can choose to have the name of the animal said in an adult's voice, a child's voice or you can record it yourself. I've recorded it myself because the adult voice was American and the child's voice, whilst being super cute (especially when he excitedly says chicken) had some pronunciation issues.

The other thing I like is that there are no other buttons to press on the screen once the game has started. Tricky is a button presser and will tap at everything to see what it does which is not the best when he can get through to language settings or to actually upgrade an app and rack up an iTunes bill. There is no risk of that happening in this game so I don't have to worry. Phew!

So cute!

Peekaboo Barn saved us the other day when Tricky's eczema was so severe that he was screaming and clawing at his own skin. I slathered him in soothing creams but the itch was so bad that everything I was doing to distract him was just met with more frustrated cries and such furious scratching that his legs started bleeding. I whipped out the iPad and started Peekaboo Barn... within a few seconds it had caught his attention enough for him to stop scratching and give the cream time to work and soothe the incessant itch. Win.

The other app we've played with has been Counting with the Very Hungry Caterpillar. I adore that colourful caterpillar and have so many gorgeous memories of the book so trying out the app was a bit exciting... and sadly a bit disappointing. I do realize it's not aimed for my age group but I wanted it to be a bit more fun than just "Please eat one apple/plum/orange". You have to tap the correct number of fruit then click done and it just increases by one each time with the same fruit... and that's level three! It just seemed really boring and predictable. I like what they were trying to do and that they've used the original illustrations but maybe if they could have varied it up a little bit more it would have been better.

Level Three

If you'd like to win either of these apps for your kiddies leave a comment below telling me in what situations iParenting has saved your sanity (or your child's skin as the case may be). Tweet/Facebook about it and let me know in another comment for an extra entry. If you can't wait, both are available from the App Store and Peekaboo Barn is also available in the Android Market.

Entry is open to everyone but it helps to have a device that can play the games. Entries close at 10pm AEDST on Monday 7th November 2011 at
which time a winner will be chosen using a random number generator. Make
sure you sign in to the comment platform with a valid email
address/twitter handle or leave your details as part of your comment so
you can be contacted. Winner has one week to reply to notification,
failing that, the prize will be redrawn. The prize is provided by Night & Day Studios and is not transferable.You will receive a code to redeem in the App Store or Android Market.

*I was not paid for this post but I did receive a free version of each app for review purposes*

12 comments:

I am an iparent through and through. On the train trip to get to our last holiday, I had one child on my phone, one on my old 3G & one on my netbook. The two on the iphones were being entertained by kid friendly apps, the netbook got the power of internet just like magic from my iphone. Once we made it to our holiday destination, I had my iphone babysitting for me while baby slept with a baby monitor app. When my baby makes a noise, the phone plays back a recording of me saying "shh, Lachie, it's OK, I'll be there soon", then the phone rings me and I can run in to snuggle him. I don't know how I had kids without a smart phone. It's essential parenting equipment for me now.

That Peekaboo Farm looks awesome! My iPhone is my morning babysitter. Lily gets up at the fairly reasonable time of 7am but I like to stay in bed for as long as possible. She grabs my phone, sticks it in my face to wake me up and I unlock it for her. She can find the folder that has her games and apps and it keeps her amused for ages. My home button doesn't work very well so she has to wake me up when she wants to change apps. She also clicks on whatever she can find and I was woken by a male voice the other morning saying "hello??". She had clicked on an ad on the bottom of the screen that straight away rang the company's number. I've turned off in-app purchases after we found a couple of charges on our iTunes account but can't find how to turn off these ads.

I think we have used peekaboo barn before...there are some amazing apps for kids about these days! I don't know if I've shared with you the comment made to me by a DR when Bliss broke her leg and we gave her my iPhone or iPad I can't even remember, to play with during some of the THREE HOUR WAIT we had for appt. I casually joked "What did we do before iPads/phones?" and was met with the reply "We PLAYED with out children". Almost slapped him!

My little man is a bit i obsessed. He's claimed my old 3G and loves the iPad too. Both are loaded with mostly autism and speechie apps but he loves the games too, and it's a lifesaver when we're waiting for appointments :)

My iPad has saved my sanity for all those hours spent breastfeeding on the couch but now Miss Maggie thinks it's a great toy and is constantly coming off the boob to turn around and touch the iPad to make it work ahhh So some cute baby apps would be perfect! just not while BFing

I resisted letting Little E use the iphone/ipad, oh, how I resisted. I gave in when I realised she was going to turn 2 and have a mouth full of cavities because no matter what we tried she would*not*let*us*brush*her*teeth. It was a two person exercise: one to pin her down and force her mouth open, the other to guiltily scrub for 10 seconds or so. A friend told me that she brushed her 2 year old's teeth to youtube. Little E does not know the word for "toothbrush" but she now knows that, around bedtime, if she says "round round?" she will be allowed to watch Chinese school children singing "the wheels on the bus" on Daddy's ipad. And I know, that if I let her, she will let me brush her teeth.